Happy New Year CSA Members, Donors and Community!
On behalf of the CSA Board of Directors, I extend warm wishes to you, your families, friends, supporters and allies for a new year full of health, peace, love, joy, fulfillment and abundance!
Thank you ALL for your membership and participation in our CSA community, in our events, support groups, and for your courage and support of each other, helping in your daily lives to educate and raise awareness about stuttering with the general public! A tremendous thanks to those of you who have so generously donated either financially or in kind as volunteers, volunteer Board Directors with your specific roles and expertise, speakers and panelists, article writers, researchers, mentors and advisors!
Happy 35th Anniversary, Canadian Stuttering Association!
A few highlights of 2025
It was another active and progressive year for the CSA as we continued to grow in support and resources, both in person and ‘virtually’, for those who stutter, their families and allies, promoting awareness and understanding of stuttering with the aim of helping persons who stutter live as effectively as possible with their stutter, and to achieve their personal and professional potential!
Conferences and Events
Our 2025 annual conference in Kingston, Ontario, was a resounding success! We impacted 78 lives, including 23 who attended our conference for the first time!
A few highlights:
- Family and Youth Programming headed up by Alexandra D’Agostino-Seguin, in the form of a Kid’s Camp which changed the life of at least one child!
- Documentary screening: Words Left Unspoken - Documentary about comedian and motivational speaker Joze Piranian’s life as a person who stutters (directed and produced by Josiane Blanc)
- Great food, workshops, and networking opportunities
- Saturday night banquet, talent show, DJ and dance
- Inspirational keynotes by Ryan Cowley and Dr. Luc de Nil
- Ever popular open mic sessions
- Fundraising goal of $15,000 reached, in part thanks to our sponsor Harmonize for Speech, our matching donor STARS (Stuttering Treatment and Research Society), and the generosity of individual donors.
As reported by David Liu, Conference and Events Planning Coordinator at our Annual General Meeting in December 2025:
Here are some comments from attendees:
- Conference highlight: "Meeting an awesome and supportive community that we never knew existed"
- "It wasn't just about sharing knowledge or stories, it was about my child feeling seen, heard and valued exactly the way they are.
- "The atmosphere was filled with kindness, encouragement, and genuine connection."
We also ran several very successful Let's Talk events:
- Self-Love and Stuttering , featuring the poignant and, if I may say so, miraculous story of Don McLean. The CSA is thrilled that we were able to offer this event to our community free of charge, the first time we've done this. We are also offering the recording of this event free of charge on our CSA YouTube Channel. Simply register for the event ‘for free’ and you will receive the link to the recorded event.
- Navigating Workplace Bullying and Knowing Your Rights was our second event which went back to being a paid event – only $10 - on workplace bullying featured Linda Crockett, a national leader in workplace bullying advocacy. Together with CSA Board member Mathew Yaworski and former Board member Amreen Valiulla, they led a dynamic event and conversation that left many moved.
- David Liu also spoke about some of the bullying that people who stutter experience at the 2025 International Workplace Bullying Awareness Conference organized by Linda Crockett.
More Regional Support Groups
Launched in 2025:
- Toronto Support Group
- University-College Students Online Support Group
- Parents Online Support Group
- Guelph Support Group
- NLSA Support Group (brought under our wing)
CSA Award 2025
Because of donations, we are able to continue offering our annual CSA Award of $500 for post-secondary students in Canada who stutter! It is critical that we support our youth and we are grateful to be able to do so! We are extremely happy to announce this year’s recipient of our CSA Award: Malick Camara!
Malick has been accepted into studies in Electrical Engineering Technology at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) and in his own words: “This award empowers me to focus on what truly matters: becoming an expert in my field. My stutter has taught me to persevere, but financial constraints shouldn’t limit my potential. By investing in my education, you’re not just helping a student—you’re supporting a future professional who will prove that communication barriers fade when skill and determination take the lead”.
Read more about Malik and his journey in his article My Stutter Has Taught Me to Persevere
CONGRATULATIONS MALICK CAMARA!
Stuttering Disclosure Card
Thanks to our Board Director, Carla Di Domenicantonio who spearheaded this initiative, the CSA is now able to provide those of you who stutter with this Stuttering Disclosure Card, should you find yourself in need of one! You can find the Card in PDF form on our website and download it as a single 2-sided card OR a full page of double-sided cards (8 in total)! Have a look!
International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD)
On October 22, 2025, thanks to new Marketing and Communications Coordinator Abhi Ruparelia, the following landmarks across Canada sea foam green to mark International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD):
- the CN Tower,
- Vancouver Sails of Light,
- Science World,
- Niagara Falls, and the
- Calgary Tower
ISAD is recognized worldwide as a day to increase understanding, build support, and celebrate the voices of people who stutter.
CSA 2025-2030 Strategic Plan
STEPPS 2: Strategies to Ensure the Potential of People Who Stutter
Beginning in late spring 2025, David Stones, former CSA Board Member, current Advisory Board Member, and seasoned strategic planning professional, led the CSA Board of Directors and our Website Developer (our strategic planning team) in a series of planning sessions, culminating in our new 5 year strategic plan.
It was an interesting exercise in which we volunteers, all of us, analyzed the meaning and value of our existence as an association, reviewed some of our hopes and dreams for the CSA over the next 5 years, and determined how we could possibly turn some of them into actual results.
Thanks to the expertise and business know-how of David Stones, and the dedication, enthusiasm, knowledge, passion and creativity of the strategic planning team, we birthed a new 5 year strategic plan and decided to give it the same meaningful name as our last plan:
STEPPS 2: Strategies To Ensure The Potential Of People Who Stutter
Read the STEPPS 2 (2025-2030) plan.
The main initiatives of STEPPS 2 are:
- Strengthen CSA connectivity with speech language pathologists, teachers and school boards. Use this as a springboard to enhance CSA services and programs for children.
- Continue to enhance CSA marketing and outreach programs to propel brand awareness and CSA visibility.
- Build on current revenue development initiatives to enhance and stabilize CSA financial and donor base.
- Continue to expand the CSA footprint through national conferences and support group growth.
A Few 2026 'Highlights' On the Way
We have an exciting year planned! Besides launching our new Strategic Plan STEPPS 2 initiatives mentioned above, we will be celebrating the 35th year anniversary of the Canadian Stuttering Association! And to kick off the year, as of January 1, 2026, we launched a new Logo and Brand!
The bold new logo empowers two themes: It blends together Canadian identity with a statement that "you can" stutter. We plan to retain as subtext to the logo the words “Canadian Stuttering Association” until new brand awareness is achieved. Read our Press Release launching the new logo!
Conference and Events and More
We are currently planning for an earlier conference this year in partnership with the Newfoundland and Labrador Stuttering Association (NLSA), to be held in beautiful St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador! So, make this year's conference a vacation for you and your family, friends and allies! It will be a SUPER conference this year! We look forward to seeing you there!!!
You can also look forward to more Let’s Talk Events and here are just a few in the works:
• Stuttering and Comedy
• Stuttering and Career: Panel Discussion
A few more Support Groups are in the works: an on-line Teen’s Support Group and a Mississauga Support Group and plans are underway for a CSA podcast!
As always, we continue our mission and vision with the following activities:
- We support our community and the public daily by email and phone and we've been known to mentor when needed
- We encourage and support our Regional Support Groups
- We offer on-line Let's Talk Events inviting speakers and panelists with a variety of topics relevant to our community
- Our Annual Conference is always a great networking and learning event in a safe and welcoming environment geared to all ages, pws, their families and allies
- Whether it is at our annual conference or a separate event, the CSA is keen on screening new documentaries related to stuttering and in fact débuted Josiane Le Blanc's documentary "Words Left Unspoken" about the life of Joze Piranian, comedian and motivational speaker and PWS, in Québec last year!
- Every year, we support multiple accredited and peer reviewed research studies related to stuttering
- We review books written by pws and also about stuttering and publish the reviews on our website
- Whether it be the tremendous amount of website content added annually in the form of 'articles' and general content pages, forms and downloadable pdfs, news articles, promotional campaigns, social media posts and youtube videos, press releases, etc., we are committed to raising awareness, advocating, educating and informing and learning
- With old and new initiatives, we continue our goal to provide support for education and for pws related to education – more on that with our new Strategic Plan intro
- We advocate in the area of Employment and have a wealth of information for pws on our website related to stuttering and employment
- We work with partners, such as Metropolitan University of Toronto's SingWell Research Project which studies the impacts of group singing on wellbeing and communication function
On December 20, 2025, we held our Annual General Meeting (AGM) which we recorded. If you are interested in more detailed information about CSA's activities and plans, you are welcome to view the 3 hour recording of the AGM on our CSA YouTube channel!
We can’t do all of this without YOU, our community and members, our donors and sponsor, and all our volunteers (including our Board of Directors) many of whom work full-time paying jobs or are full-time students, who are passionate and committed to advocating, raising awareness, and supporting our stuttering community across Canada!
Together, we are working to make Canada a place where people who stutter are given a chance to speak openly, are listened to and included, and where stuttering is an acceptable way of talking!
We look forward to seeing and/or hearing you this new year 2026!
Eeva Stierwalt, CSA National Coordinator and the CSA Board of Directors